We Are the Men in Black

by Velgamidragon

AU inspired by DragonlordRynn's "Black". The Organization is secretly the Japanese branch of the Men in Black and APTX-4869 was intentionally made to shrink its victim. Kudo was shrunk for his own protection, and Sherry shrunk to protect Dr. Agasa and go into hiding. Vermouth was behaving suspiciously as of late, and Gin was determined to find out and expose her secret agenda.

13. Phantom Thief Kid vs the Strongest Vault

Author's Note: Oh hey look! A new chapter that took me less than a month to write! Behold, a completely original chapter with plot! Also, I didn't realize this until several days after I'd posted the previous chapter, but this wanna-be novel (seriously, this entire thing is already 279 pages) is already a year old. I can hardly believe it myself, and even crazier yet, by my current estimate, this story is already about halfway done. Crazy.

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Phantom Thief Kid vs the Strongest Vault

"'Phantom Thief Kid has sent a challenge notice to his old rival Jirokichi Suzuki', huh?" Haibara read off the front of the morning's newspaper. "Well, I guess that means the 'Kid Killer' will be making an appearance in the papers again shortly as well. You'd think someone who believes his life is in jeopardy if his face appears in the newspaper again would be a bit more cautious about letting his alter ego be printed in the paper as well."

"Now Ai, you know Shinichi can't resist a case, no matter how risky and it's not his fault that Phantom Thief Kid is so smart and quick that he can't take the time to set Mouri up to reveal the truth," Dr. Agasa said as he set a plate of fried eggs and toast on the table next to her.

"It has nothing to do with timing and everything to do with his ego," Haibara retorted acidly as she bit into the toast and quickly flipped through the rest of the newspaper. "He's gotten better, but he still can't resist showboating if he thinks he can get away with it. He even did that with Pisco, remember? A supposed member of the Black Organization? He's lucky that Gin had to kill him otherwise he could have blown his cover and mine back then."

"I guess that's true," Dr. Agasa agreed slowly. "So does it say when this new Kid heist will take place?"

"Nope, they didn't print that information this time. I guess it hasn't been deciphered from the note yet. Well, I'm sure Kudo will figure it out soon enough since he likes breaking codes so much. Maybe I should get him a codebook for his birthday next year," she said and slipped off the barstool.

"Oi, Ai, where are you going? You haven't finished your breakfast yet."

Haibara waved her hand idly in his general direction. "I'm just going out to pick up a few tabloids; I won't be long. You can leave it in the microwave for me if you'd like."

"The tabloids?" the Professor repeated blankly.

"Yes, how else do you think I keep up on alien news? I may not be an active member of the MiB right now, but I still like being somewhat aware of what's going on," she said as she finished putting on her shoes and left the house.

It was a clear, bright day outside and Haibara could tell it was going to be uncomfortably hot later since it was already so warm this early in the day. She glanced at the Kudo house next door, glared at the windows, and turned down the sidewalk in the opposite direction. She hated feeling like she was under Akai's scrutiny every time she left Dr. Agasa's residence, and he was doing a very poor job of coming off as not-creepy. In fact, if Gin hadn't told her that Akai's death had been faked, she'd have suspected he was some kind of alien infiltrator spying on her every move. He had always been a socially-awkward introvert, but was he really so bad at being human that even refugee aliens like Dr. Agasa seemed more normal? And then there was that incident at Ikkaku Rock…

Haibara frowned and crossed her arms over chest as she walked. When Akai had moved to confront the killer after he'd grabbed Ayumi, she had felt it: the blood lust of the hunt. And this was the second time she had felt it from him. The first time was during their first meeting with 'Subaru Okiya', but she was just as confused then as she was now about why. In every previous instance, she had only sensed that terrifying hunting blood lust coming from beings, human or otherwise, who had meant to do her harm, such as Vermouth. However, in both instances with Akai, she had not been the target of such intensity nor had he expressed any remotely violent behavior. Even when the killer's knife was turned on him at Ikkaku Rock, he just blocked the maneuver and that was it.

She'd never really understood how her sensing ability worked, but had accepted it as a specific but highly-reliable sense of intuition that had accurately protected her for five consecutive years. Now, she had no clue what was going on. It seemed like her sensing ability was maybe starting to generalize or weaken since the target apparently no longer needed to be her nor did the hunter have to be violent, but then why did she still not sense anything with the regular criminals they encountered? Why was it deciding to pick up on Akai of all people?

Why it was changing or how, she had no idea and that was exactly why she hadn't told Gin yet either. Doing so would only alarm him and there was no need for him to take action right now. She'd wait and see how things played out first for a while and see if she could figure out if her hunting sense was really changing or if there was something causing it to act up.

Haibara's introspective thoughts had taken her all the way to the business streets and she refocused on the task that had brought her out here in the first place. She turned right and walked down the street, casually taking in all the brightly-colored displays in the windows and greeting all the store owners she passed if they were close enough. It was already shaping up to be quite an active day.

"Ah Ai, there you are!" a voice called out to her.

She looked up a little further ahead and saw a tanned, brown-haired youth waving merrily at her. Haibara smiled jogged up to meet him. "Hi Soshi, you look cheerful today; did something good happen?"

By all appearances, Soshi Yano was an energetic, charming second-year college student majoring in mechanical engineering and working part-time at a ramen restaurant during the evenings and this magazine stand on Saturday and Sunday mornings. The reality was that he was a young Fiddlesprocket named Ketz that had sought refuge on Earth with the rest of his family five years ago when his home planet became part of the intergalactic equivalent of World War I's infamous 'No Man's Land'. He didn't actually know that she knew he was a Fiddlesprocket, of course. He was very well-adjusted for an alien refugee and only an experienced MiB agent would know what to look for.

Soshi grinned broadly down at her and said, "Yes, I got a promotion last night at the ramen restaurant! Starting tonight, I begin training as a Prep Line cook!"

"Congratulations, that's wonderful! I'm sure you'll do well," Haibara said happily. These were the moments that she treasured: seeing alien refugees living and thriving on a new planet in spite of all the hardships and challenges they'd faced along the way. It was easy to forget that when you worked for a law enforcement agency, even the Men in Black.

"Thanks Ai! I knew you'd be coming today, so I couldn't wait to tell you. See anything that catches your eye this time?"

With the pleasantries exchanged, Haibara turned her greenish-blue eyes to the rows of assorted magazines on the back wall of the stall and quickly scanned the front pages of the tabloids. She came to this magazine stall at least once a month to check for alien news. Occasionally, Soshi found something that she'd missed, but despite being an alien himself, he still hadn't caught the common thread of her tabloid searches. It was surprising how clueless he was for being a human college-grade engineering student.

"How about that one?" she said, pointing to a magazine with the words 'Invisible Robber' and a black human outline with a red question mark inside it.

Soshi picked it up and hummed curiously before handing it to her. "You sure like the weird ones, don't you?"

"Yup," she agreed and now that she could see the full cover, she could read the entire title: 'Invisible Robber Strikes Again! Police left baffled!'

She raised an eyebrow at the sensational title but opened the magazine to the story in question. Perhaps the contents would provide more context for why the story was written here instead of in the newspaper.

At 7:30 last night, July 18th, the convenience store at the corner of Hatsune and Miko became the latest victim in this series of convenience store robberies, with the first occurring on July 12th at 6:40, the second on July 13th at 9:15, and the third on July 15th at 5:22. As with the previous two incidents, the clerk working the register doesn't remember anything up to an hour after the time of the theft, but the footage caught on the security camera reveals the exact same MO as the previous incidents and is even stranger than the victim's lack of memory.

With no other customers present at the register or coming into the store, the store clerk, who wishes to remain anonymous, suddenly stiffened, and a bag literally appeared out of thin air, hovering in the air. The clerk seemed to take no notice of this oddity and proceeded to empty the money from the till into the bag. Once the register was empty, the clerk walked out from behind the counter and set the bag on the floor. And just as suddenly as the bag had appeared, it disappeared in an instant, again, with no other customers present in the footage.

The police sent to investigate the crime scene believe there was some kind of trick involved but were unable provide any speculative answers for how it was pulled off. Perhaps the first convenience store robbery could have been a trick, but with three other robberies successfully pulled off in the same manner? Clearly, this crime could only have been committed with magic. Maybe the police should start investigating that angle instead of fruitlessly trying to figure out a so-called trick that cannot have been done by normal human means.

Haibara smirked. 'Normal human means', huh? She then smiled up at Soshi. "This is the one I want," she said as she handed him the money for the magazine.

"No problem, Ai. It's a pleasure to have your business as always," he said cheerily.

She waved goodbye to him and turned to walk back in the direction of home, her eyes once more glued to the article. Investigating a magic lead would be as fruitless an endeavor as trying to figure out what kind of trick a normal human could have used to pull this off. Any MiB agent worth their salt could recognize this was an alien criminal at work and probably the only reason it hadn't been discovered yet was because the crime spree was recent, small-time, and occurred during the continued pursuit of Ringore. In fact, his arrest had occurred just yesterday, ironically at the time of the theft. Compared to that, Haibara could hardly blame the MiB for not noticing a small string of weird convenience store robberies.

Still, even though she could usually recognize the work of aliens when she saw it, she was a scientist by profession and couldn't instantly tell what kind of alien was responsible for the crime the way the older, more-experienced field agents could. She was a little curious, but knew better than to get involved and was just about to consider letting the MiB handle it when they were no longer so busy when she looked up and found herself staring at the front gate of the Kudo house. Haibara jumped and looked around behind her to Dr. Agasa's house. She'd been so lost in thought that she had overshot her destination by one neighbor. She started to backtrack, but something made her pause and stare at one of the curtained windows on the second floor. It was the feeling of being watched. Shuichi Akai…

She scowled at the window for good measure and stomped off back to the Professor's. There was no getting away from him. He couldn't reveal himself to be alive because then the 'Black Organization' would kill him – and Kir for being his accomplice – and he wouldn't move away because he was in the perfect position to watch over his dead girlfriend's little sister and assist Conan with anything he needed. Unless something changed, the only way she'd be able to escape his scrutiny was for her mission to end, and who knew how long that would take?

Thoroughly vexed, Haibara slammed open the front door, startling the Arquillian, and headed directly for the microwave where the rest of her breakfast remained. "Ai, is everything alright?" Dr. Agasa asked tentatively.

Haibara stuffed the tabloid under her arm and retrieved the plate with a huff. "Akai has got to go. I'll be in the basement lab. Please don't bother me," she muttered mutinously as she retreated downstairs with her food and her reading.

She locked the door behind her for good measure and tossed the tabloid onto the desk next to the computer. She sat down in the chair and turned on the computer. While she was waiting for it to start up, she set her food down and grabbed one of her notepads lying around, the page of which had diagrams of complex organic compounds in both cis and trans configurations. Right, she'd been working on the Apoptoxin antidote last night before going to bed. She ripped that page off and stuck it in the drawer with the rest of her notes on the antidote, then she grabbed a pen and started jotting down new notes on the paper. It seemed likely that if the convenience store robberies had gone on this long without being stopped, then the culprits were likely to strike a fourth time, and she had to figure out where, when, and who if she was going to stop it. That meant first compiling a list of all the known data points in the previous three cases.

Haibara referred back to the article several times to make sure she had all the information about the third robbery and then she turned to the Internet for information about the previous two. Except for the robberies occurring in the evening, there was no pattern in the time of the thefts, but she had noticed that the robberies were occurring at increasingly-lengthy intervals with the first two being a day apart, the next robbery occurring two days later, and the latest occurring three days after the previous. Unless the culprit suddenly decided to break the pattern, she expected the next convenience store robbery would occur in four days, coincidentally on the same day that the Phantom Thief Kid would be challenging Advisor Suzuki. A little half-smirk flitted briefly across her face. At least this string of robberies won't spontaneously end with a dead body since murder-magnet Conan Edogawa will be elsewhere.

So, she had a tentative when, but not a where, and that was what she hoped to figure out from looking at the other three robberies. She pulled up a web browser and started a google search of 'invisible convenience store robber'. Just as she'd hoped, the search had turned up more articles of the same caliber that last night's robbery had been printed in, and a quick glance at their publication dates confirmed they were the ones she wanted. Haibara opened up the article about the first one in the half-hearted hope that there might be more detailed information about the case since the strangeness was new at the time.

There was a little bit more, like the cash clerk remembered feeling a sudden draft of air and a sharp prick on the back of her neck right before the moment she lost her memory when the theft had occurred, but nothing beyond that. Haibara found the address for the convenience store and opened up a maps tab on the web browser to pinpoint its exact location. She added in the address for the most recent one too to compare the two and noted that the first was southwest from the last one at a 225-degree angle. She copied the store addresses of the other two robberies to plot them on her map and then did a double-take. They made a single perfect straight line. She even zoomed in on the line to measure the individual slope of each section between the four points, but the result was the same. From their starting point, the robber was hitting the convenience stores at an exact 45-degree angle in a northeastern direction. If she extended the slope of the existing line along the positive x- and y-axes, then she could calculate the robber's next target and be there to intercept them.

It was simple enough math to do and yet, as Haibara started writing out the equation to solve, she felt uneasy. These robberies… there was a pattern to their timing and their location and it wasn't even a difficult pattern to solve, but what was the reason for it? The robber was clearly successful at accomplishing its objective with the regular police unable to catch them, so then why were they making it so easy to predict their movements? Rather than stealing because they needed to, it was almost like they had a set schedule to follow for which place they had to rob and when. Why though? Why in a northeastern direction and why convenience stores if the robber was just following orders? With their skills, they could easily rob places with a better payout than the loose bills of a convenience store register's till. It just didn't make any sense.

Haibara used her equation to draw the line on the map and zoomed in on the screen to find the robber's next target. She found it, and it was only a couple miles away too. She could probably even take a bus, so she wouldn't have to worry about bothering the Professor into giving her a ride. Now she just had to figure out what she would be up against, so that she could prepare an adequate defense. Easy, right? She wished. Haibara sighed and started the hidden software program that would activate her connection to the MiB's vast database network. While she waited, she pondered over the situation that would be waiting for her. If she had figured it out this fast, then somebody in the police department had probably done the same and there would be some cops stationed at the convenience store in question to try and prevent a fifth robbery. She would need to make sure she brought her neuralyzer in case things got out of hand.

The computer icon at the bottom righthand corner of the screen finally turned green. She clicked on the icon and inputted the network ID and password on the login sidebar. The combination was accepted, a loading bar filled half the screen, and then finally a new program opened up with another login screen. The background was black and the text read 'Men in Black' in white font with two empty bars below that read 'User ID' and 'Password' below. Haibara typed in her codename and her password then hit 'Enter'. The computer took a few minutes before ultimately deciding to accept the entry and gave her access to the MiB database network. She navigated her way to the alien species data records and scanned her options on the search filters, frowning slightly.

There were millions of different alien species currently living on Earth, many of them with abilities so incredible they could only be described as magic, and all Haibara knew about her alien thieves was that they were invisible and employing some type of mind control that resulted in an hour's worth of memory loss afterward. Oh, and choosing their targets by traveling in a northeastern direction may or may not be a relevant factor. She knew that if she called Gin and gave him all the relevant data about the case, he'd have an answer for her in an instant because he was the same work-obsessed weirdo as Kudo that way, but she didn't want his help. She wanted to solve this mystery on her own without having to rely on someone else. Haibara sighed heavily and leaned back in her chair, staring blankly at the screen. Well, she had three days left to discover the culprit's identity. She had time.

()()()()()

Three days later…

Since Haibara had no idea the exact time the alien robbers were likely to strike except 'evening', she had arrived at the location at 3:30 way ahead of schedule. She had planned on needing more time to lose Akai just in case he decided to resume his new favorite hobby of Sherry-stalking. He needed to stop. His being 'dead' was doing her no favors. Fortunately, she had brought plenty of reading material and snacks to prevent boredom while she waited and there was a book store right across the street that she could park herself in without conspicuously waiting out in the open.

At around five, Haibara spotted the police officers that had arrived to stake out the location. They weren't dressed like cops of course, but they were clearly waiting around for something to happen. She didn't recognize them, but that was probably because she ended up spending most of her time with the Section One officers anyway. They'd probably recognize her though. How many times had she and the rest of the kids gone to the police station to give witness statements now? It was some ridiculously high number is what it was. Still, Haibara reached into her pants pocket and patted the neuralyzer hidden there. If she needed to, she would not hesitate to use it on them.

With the police here, it would be smart to maintain a more watchful vigil and make sure she was ready at the slightest sign of trouble. From her other pocket, she pulled out two mini-flashlights with rainbow-striped tissue paper taped over the bulb end. She turned one on and a rainbow-colored spot appeared on the far wall. She turned it off and did the same with the other. Both flashlights were working and if she was right about her culprit, they would be all she would need to find them. There was one other device she needed now that the stakeout had officially begun. From the pocket with the neuralyzer, Haibara pulled out a jam jar full of water with something yellow at the bottom and unscrewed the lid. She wrinkled her nose at the smell – like swamp water – and carefully stuck her hand in. Her fingers grasped the slippery yellow thing and she held fast as she pulled it out. It was a small, yellow, ugly, leech-like fish known as a Babelfish and it was simultaneously the most inexplicable and dead useful thing she'd come across in working for the Men in Black. When she put it in her ear, she could literally understand any alien language because the Babelfish had the biological capacity to translate them. She was sure the evolution of the mechanism in the parasitic fish hadn't originally occurred with the intention of being a universal translator, but it was a very useful ability. The MiB had a whole department dedicated to the careful maintenance and care of the Babelfish breeding colonies, and since Babelfish eggs were apparently the caviar of the galaxy, the Organization also had a financial incentive to keep large, healthy Babelfish populations.

The yellow fish wiggled between her fingers and Haibara frowned at it in disgust. She appreciated their usefulness, she'd even cross-trained with the Babelfish Husbandry Department for six months, but seeing their creepy little sucker mouths and knowing that it was going into her ear always squicked her out. She cringed, closed her eyes, and shoved it into her ear as quick as possible. It was cold and slimy and it made a sickening squelching noise going in that nearly activated her gag reflex. When she was fairly certain she wasn't about to throw up anymore, she removed her hand and shivered in disgust. Useful, but so gross. Now if any nearby aliens spoke at all, she would hear them, invisible or not.

Armed with her detection equipment, she watched the front door of the convenience store intently, confirming that every time it opened, somebody either entered or exited. It was tedious work and it was easy to get distracted (literally everything else was more interesting during such assignments), but she was determined to remain focused. The MiB had enough going on right now, she could handle this one little thieving crime spree on her own.

It wasn't until 5:57 that something finally happened.

A large crowd of people walked past the store's entrance and she saw the door open, but not one of those pairs of legs entered. Haibara was suddenly alert and immediately left the book store. A quick glance at the undercover cops in the beige sedan told her they hadn't noticed the convenience store door opening on its own. It was probably a good thing; normal police had an unfortunate tendency of getting in the way during critical do-or-die MiB matters. She crossed the street as quickly as she dared without looking suspicious and entered the convenience store.

The amount of noise within was so loud it was nearly deafening and then she discovered to her shock that there was hardly anyone present in the store at the moment and none of the customers were moving their lips. With a growing sense of dread, Haibara quickly made her way over to the nearest row and pretended to read the nutrition labels on the snacks when in reality, she was listening to the noisy conversation spoken over the buzzing sound coming from the invisible robbers.

"Well, N2A, N2B (it sounded like Nitua and Nitubee), how many humans are in here?"

"There are nine total, N1Z (Nwunzee), and that includes the little girl who just came in after us."

"Good, we can manage that with just the seven of us as long as we try and group multiple people together. Remember to use Our eyes first to mesmerize, but if We have to sting, only use a half-dosage of hypno-venom. The human at the money box is the only one that needs the full dosage. N3N (Nuthreen) will be the prime stinger and N8O (Naeto) will collect the money. N2 twins will take care of the people in the back, N9X (Nnainx) and N5K (Nufivek) will take care of the people in the front, and We will take care of the rest of the store workers. Now go."

Haibara knew the only reason she'd heard any of that was because of the Babelfish in her ear and hearing the conversation only served to confirm her suspicions on the identity of the invisible robber. The buzzing, the naming convention, invisible bodies, the targets lined up in a northeast direction, mesmer eyes, a hypno-venom, it all added up. She knew exactly what these aliens were and like Kudo always said, one truth prevails. However, no one truth was going to help her stop seven aliens from robbing yet another convenience store. She needed to do something, and she needed to do it fast because she could hear the buzzing sound of wings coming closer to her. Well, the first order of business was to prevent herself from being hypnotized by their mesmer eyes. From the same pocket as her neuralyzer, she withdrew a pair of dark sunglasses and put them on.

She hummed to herself and said in a childish pitch, "Big Brother was right! I do feel cooler wearing sunglasses at night!"

It felt silly to say, but she was seven right now. She was allowed to say silly things and it was an excellent pretense to hide her eyes. These particular aliens couldn't mesmerize her without direct eye contact.

The alien sighed "We hate human larvae" and the buzzing wings drew closer.

In one swift movement, Haibara flipped out one of her flashlights and shone it in the direction of the buzzing. A large, glimmering, rainbow-colored flying insect suddenly appeared where the flashlight struck. It resembled a beetle, but with a dragonfly's wings and giant compound eyes, and it possessed a mirror-like carapace that reflected white light away from their bodies, dispersing it as color and effectively becoming invisible. Reversing the process reversed the effect and made the insect appear.

"I knew it. You are Rainbow Dazzleflies," she muttered and then asked "Why are you robbing human stores? Did the Queen order you to do this?"

The dazzlefly halted in midair and cocked its head sideways. "The human can hear and see Us?" it said to itself.

Haibara took advantage of its momentary confusion to lunge forward and grab it at the base of its wasp-like stinger. Its defensive weapon neutralized, she dropped the flashlight to pull out the now-empty jam jar and slammed it into the mirror carapace. Both cracked on impact and shards from both fell to the ground at her feet. She kept her precarious hold on both jar and insect as she backed away, the former being her weapon and the latter being her shield. There was no way the other dazzleflies hadn't heard the commotion. Sure enough, she heard them coming and she backed up against the shelving, swinging the broken jar in her hand to where she heard the noises coming from. She wished she had a third hand to shine the rainbow flashlight again, but she couldn't let go of the dazzlefly she'd captured without it stinging her with the hypno-venom and she couldn't just rip off the stinger because that would kill it.

"Stay back, Dazzleflies," she warned. "I'm an MiB operative-"

"-MiB!" two disembodied voices and the insect in her arm gasped.

"-and I may not be able to see you, but I can still hear you and I won't hesitate to break your carapaces like your sister here if you force my hand. This crime spree has gone on long enough. One of you lock the front doors and one of you fetch Nwunzee. I wish to speak with her about her unit's actions in compliance with the will of the hive."

The buzzing faded away as the two dazzleflies left to fulfill her tasks. The one under her arm squirmed a little and whined pitifully, but Haibara had its wings pinned and its stick-like legs weren't strong enough to pull away. She kept one ear open for any surprise attacks, but let the rest of her mind wander. She'd bought some time, but she was in a stalemate that could easily turn against her. She didn't want to hurt any of them and unlike many alien species, Rainbow Dazzleflies were quite docile. They were a matriarchal, hive-oriented species much like Earth's own ants, bees, and termites with a queen at the top, a small group of male drones to mate with, and an entire hive of female workers who did everything else. They generally only acted with the interest of the hive in mind and were only aggressive when the life of the hive or the Queen was threatened. That was why Haibara found this series of robberies being committed by them so troubling and that was why she wished to speak with the unit leader. Perhaps she was missing something and the dazzleflies did indeed have a valid – in their eyes – hive-centric reason for stealing money from convenience stores. Or, and this was what she feared, something had caused this family unit to go rogue and they were no longer connected with the rest of the hive. An exiled dazzlefly was a dangerous dazzlefly, and a unit of them was even worse.

Haibara was brought back out of her thoughts by returning buzz and she heard them stop to hover in front of her. "Am I speaking with the unit leader?" she asked cautiously. This would be so much easier if she could see them.

There was a silent pause and then, "You…? Sherry?"

Cold fear flashed through her. "What?"

"It's you? Are you Sherry?"

"I… No, I-"

"-Oh? You say 'no'? You're not Sherry?"

Confused, alarmed, and feeling like her chances were better if she lied, she said, "No, I'm not Sherry, I'm-"

Haibara broke off with a gasp as a sharp pain lanced through her neck. How had they-? She didn't hear-! Instantly, she felt light-headed and drowsy. Sensing weakness, the dazzlefly under her arm made a fresh attempt to escape. She tried to retighten her grip on the struggling insect, but her arm was unresponsive and the dazzlefly slipped free.

"How are your wings, N9X?"

"Don't worry, N9X, your mirrors will be fixed after your next shed."

The Babelfish was still in her ear translating everything, but it was quickly becoming impossible to understand anything happening around her. She fought to retain her sense of self, but it was like holding water: frustratingly pointless. After a sadly brief struggle, Haibara lost the fight and her conscious mind slept.

()()()()()

When Haibara 'awoke', it took a minute or two for her to remember what happened, but once she did, she was quick to dispel any lingering grogginess. She didn't immediately recognize her surroundings, but was shocked to discover that she wasn't restrained at all. She was literally just standing in the middle of what looked like a dilapidated car mechanic shop and the Rainbow Dazzleflies, all seven of them, were hovering in a circle facing each other with their mirror carapaces inverted (except for the one that must be Nnainx – the left broken half remained the same), which made them very visible to Haibara's normal human eyes. They were conversing with each other and none of them seemed to have noticed she was no longer in a trance. She listened in, grateful that they hadn't removed the Babelfish from her ear either.

"We still think it's a bad idea," one said.

"We agree with N8O; we should not have called her," said another.

"She wants Sherry and the human larva looks like Sherry, so We called her. We are being difficult, N5K," one insisted.

"But N1Z, the file she gave us said Sherry isn't a larva, she's an adult. Larvae pupate into adults, but adults don't pupate back into larvae," Nufivek retorted.

It was times like these that Haibara found it very frustrating that Rainbow Dazzleflies had no first-person pronouns in their language and refused to use second-person pronouns when addressing individuals from the same hive. It made understanding them just that much more difficult, but she didn't need to decipher the pronoun game to figure out that someone was after her, they had used the dazzleflies to capture her, and this 'she' they were referring to was coming to collect. Wherever she was, she had to get out now. Yet despite them capturing her to deliver to some unknown entity, Haibara still didn't feel a sense of hunting blood lust coming from them. It was like they had no will of their own.

"Humans don't pupate though, so maybe they can regress back to their larval forms," a different one suggested.

"The human larva agreed when asked that she wasn't Sherry, N3N," Naeto pointed out.

"But the human larva did admit to being an MiB operative, right N2A?"

"Why are We asking Us? We N2 twins were both in the back of the store; N9X was the one who heard her," Nitua replied.

"She didn't fight like a larva," Nnainx grumbled unhappily as she stroked one of her twig-like legs over the damaged mirror.

Haibara internally winced as she continued her slow shuffling slide towards the far back corner where several rusted cars were stored in a row and happened to be hiding a stretch of dusty storage cabinets that had probably been used to hold replacement parts and the assorted car liquids of different brands. Her body screamed at her to move faster, but she resisted the impulse. The dazzleflies were completely unaware that she was no longer hypnotized and she was going to keep it that way for as long as she could. That meant not drawing attention to herself by running and that also meant taking careful steps that wouldn't disturb the dust.

It was painfully-slow work and it felt like it took forever, but at last she finally managed to crouch down in the corner out of sight from the dazzleflies and was able to take a closer look at the cabinets. They didn't seem to be locked, but she was hesitant to try opening one. All she needed was one good squeak from a rusty hinge and she'd be found. She quickly glanced around, taking stock of her surroundings once more and her eyes landed on the nearby cars. Well, why not? Nobody was using them and she was small enough to slip under them. Maybe she could even crawl into one and curl up in the foot space by the pedals.

However, just as she was about to look into that possibility, one of the dazzleflies shrieked, "The human larva's gone!"

"What?! We have to find her! Split up and search everywhere in the area! She's small, so she couldn't have gotten far!"

She'd run out of time! Haibara quickly darted under the closest car and flattened herself out against the ground in line with the car's axle, between the back tires. Some of the dust rose and she fought down a sneeze that threatened to give her away. She tuned back into her surroundings and listened intently. She could faintly hear a buzzing noise coming in her direction now and pressed one of the buttons on her wristwatch. The circular covering popped open with a soft click – a spare of Kudo's stun-gun wristwatch – and her finger hovered over the trigger. She only had one needle in the watch. There would be no second chances if she failed. The buzzing became so loud, Haibara was sure the dazzlefly was directly overhead. She held perfectly still, arm poised to shoot, and watched the top of the car's underside edge. She saw blurred translucent wings… then spindly legs… she shot the dart as soon as she saw the unprotected underbelly of the abdomen. The dart struck true and the dazzlefly's flight shuddered ominously. Haibara quickly lunged forward and caught it before it hit the ground and raised a cloud of dust, then brought it under the car with her. She didn't hear any other buzzing, so this was probably the only one searching the shop for the moment.

Holding on to her prize, she scurried out from under the car and peeked at the driver's side. The door was still present, though the window was smashed. She was neither tall enough to climb in, nor did she wish to risk leaving a clean swath of dust on the door in the attempt, but maybe… She tried the door handle and to her surprise, it opened. Haibara glanced inside and saw enough room by the pedals for her to seclude herself. She squeezed inside with the sleeping dazzlefly and gently closed car door behind her just enough to hear the latch click. She then slipped off the seat and crouched down in the foot space. With a jolt, she realized there was a large, gaping hole beneath the brake pedal, and peering through it, she saw the six-inch-diameter hole extended all the way out to the front of the car through the grill. What the heck? Did this car get into a fight with a javelin; why was there such a strange circular hole all the way through the front like that? Despite its positioning, she could still avoid sitting in front of the hole but didn't think it would end up being a problem.

It was dark in the shop and the hole was small enough in such an odd place that even if the Rainbow Dazzleflies did look through it, they wouldn't be able to see anything. They weren't nocturnal, which was another reason the evening robbery times occurring just before nightfall were so unusual to her. Even if they couldn't see her through the front hole, she currently had no such protection if they looked through the windows into the car's interior.

'That's where you come in, my friend,' she thought grimly as she adjusted the dazzlefly in her arms and started carefully reverting the alien insect's mirror carapace to its original position.

She worked until the mirrors completely surrounded the body once more, and then she extended the mirrors outward as far as they would spread before placing the insect on top of her. The mirrors now covered her like a sheet. Ordinarily, the mirror carapace would not be useful in hiding her from other dazzleflies, but she remembered Akemi had once mentioned that they could only see each other when beneath their armor when they were awake because their bodies emitted a special light. They supposedly didn't create that light when they were sleeping and Haibara prayed with everything she had that her sister was right, because she was done for otherwise. She waited still and silent underneath her unwilling companion, even as she felt the feeling leave her limbs and heard two more dazzleflies pass by her hiding place without spotting her.

Just as she was beginning to wonder what she would do if they stayed so long that the sedative in the dart wore off before she could escape, she heard one of the dazzleflies, perhaps Nwunzee, call out, "Everyone regroup back at the point of origin immediately!"

Haibara instinctively glanced at her dazzlefly, but it showed no inclination of having heard the command from the unit leader. A mass of buzzing wings came from all directions up ahead. She automatically turned her head in that direction and realized with a start that she could see the exact spot where the unit was regathering through the hole in the car. How ridiculously convenient! Still… She warily peered through the hole and saw the remaining six dazzleflies hovering in a loose circle all facing each other. Maybe it was the jerky manner in which they corrected their motions to maintain position or the frantic twitchiness of their antennae, but they all seemed anxious.

"Where's N8O?" Nwunzee demanded of the group.

"We don't know! We haven't seen her since we first split up to find the human larva!" one answered.

"What if N8O found the human larva and was captured by her?!" another asked.

"Even if she was, the human larva's long gone by now and Pandora will be here any minute with us having nothing to show for it!"

Haibara barely managed to stifle her gasp in time. Pandora…! It wasn't… It couldn't be the same one the Gorda had mentioned, could it?!

"So what do we do? She said she wanted us to capture Sherry, but we don't have Sherry or the human larva who looks like her."

"Can we just leave before she gets here?" Nnainx, the one with the broken mirrors, asked tentatively.

"That won't end well, she'll just hunt us down and kill us."

"And she won't if there's no Sherry when she arri- AIIEEE!" A gunshot rang out and the speaking dazzlefly crumpled to the ground as one of its wings flew off to land on the ground a few feet away.

Haibara stared in shock at the dismembered limb until the sounds from the outside world finally permeated her consciousness and she heard the footsteps. It was a bipedal gait with a long, easy stride and solid footwear like shoes or hooves. The owner was moving forward and approaching her line of sight. First, she saw black dress shoes and slacks then her eyes widened when she saw the hem of a long black coat. Coming closer still, she saw the trailing end of long silvery-blond hair and felt her heart soar of its own accord. It was…!

The new arrival came to a stop, completely visible through Haibara's peephole and green eyes glared hatefully at the alien insects. "Where's the girl?"

'Gin!' she thought with a swell of relief. She was safe now, but these aliens wouldn't be if she didn't show Gin she was alright. However, she'd been frozen in one position for so long that trying to uncramp herself out of it physically hurt and her extremities tingled unpleasantly.

It looked like it would take too long for her to pop out of hiding and knowing Gin's patience was zero when his loved ones were threatened, she was about to call out to him when one of the dazzleflies started speaking and made her pause. "I'm sorry, she seems to have gotten away."

Terrible silence descended in the shop. Gin grinned and his eyes briefly flashed blood red. In that instant, Haibara felt a familiar pressure in her chest and her breath seized. It was the same malevolent, choking pressure she'd sensed from Vermouth – the cruel hunting blood lust – and it was coming from Gin.

He withdrew his Beretta and systematically shot and killed every single one of the Rainbow Dazzleflies with barely a pause. The bodies fell from the air with a heavy thump. Watery green ichor oozed slowly out of the fatal wounds onto the floor. Nnanix's already-damaged mirror crumbled even more and the glass fragments tinkled as they rolled away.

The pressure faded away when the last leg stopped twitching and Gin reholstered the gun with a sigh. "What a waste," he muttered. "The one I used on Irish wasn't strong enough, but this one ended up being too strong, and Sherry's still alive to boot. Their venom better be worth it." Then he turned on his heel, his silvery hair sweeping around behind him as he strode out of the shop.

Even when Haibara could no longer hear Gin's footsteps, she stayed rooted to her hiding place unmoving. She could have stayed there for hours with her jaw agape in a silent, horrified scream and her arms frozen with fear.

Eventually, and who knew how long it really was, she reached for her phone in her back pocket and pulled it out. Her hands were shaking so badly that she had to delete the numbers she was inputting several times before she got the right one and brought the phone to her ear to listen to the ringing.

The recipient picked up mercifully quickly. "Ah, Ai, where are you? It's almost 7:45 already. Have you had dinner yet?" Dr. Agasa asked.

"P… Professor… Please come get me…" she breathed, unable to speak any louder than a whisper.

"Ai, what happened? What's wrong?"

"I was kidnapped… by a unit of Rainbow Dazzleflies… They weren't acting normal… Stealing from convenience stores… I followed them… they kidnapped me… I don't know where I am, and they're… my god, they're dead… all dead…" she broke off with a choked sob.

"Eh?! Dead?! How? Who killed them?"

"It was…" she halted, staring blankly ahead. She could see it all in her mind's eye: the terrible grin, the flash of red, the malignant pressure. She shook her head. "I don't know."

"Are you safe right now?"

She nodded jerkily. "I think so… I think the killer's gone… Left when the dazzleflies told him they lost me… after he…"

"Wait, what do you mean 'told him they lost you'?" Dr. Agasa asked bewildered.

"Not right now… I'll tell you later… Can you also bring some preservation gel when you pick me up? Something that can be used on alien corpses?"

"Ah, yeah, I should have something like that lying around here that will work, but where am I picking you up from?"

Right, she still didn't know that yet. "Don't worry, I'll find out for you. It might take me a while though, so you can start getting everything ready and head northeast. I'll text you the nearest address once I find out, but I'll be staying out of sight. I've got…" Haibara glanced down at her companion, sleeping blissfully unaware of the tragic fate that had just befallen her family unit, and gulped. "… a survivor."

()()()()()

It was a good thing everyone at school was still up in arms over the Phantom Thief Kid fiasco of last night and were too preoccupied to notice Haibara was both sleepier and more jumpy than usual. She'd had an awful night's sleep full of nightmares and the daylight hours did nothing to drive them away, for the fears that fueled them were not the product of a child's overactive imagination. She had dreamed of Gin, a common enough occurrence even though the subject material this time was anything but.

She dreamed she'd perfected the antidote and the threat to her and Dr. Agasa had been lifted. She was free to return home and Gin was there waiting for her. She had run to him and he'd caught her in his arms, hugging her tightly. She had kissed him with all the passion and pain of their long separation and he had kissed her back just as ardently. After they had broken apart, she had promised she would never leave his side and that was the moment everything went wrong.

He'd smiled, cold and insincere, and held her in a vice-like grip as he lowered his head, his breath ghosting over her ear when he said, "Then let's celebrate our reunion with your favorite color of the rose-"

There was a click and the press of cold metal against her temple, his gun at her head.

"-in the pure redness of blood."

Then he'd held her pinned to his side as her family and friends all came forward out of the darkness and Gin shot them all one after the other with a maniacal gleam in his eyes and a savage grin on his face. The red blood flowed so fast and deep, it pooled up to their ankles and dragged her under like quicksand, the oxygen-providing fluid ironically drowning her…

And that was when she'd finally been able to force herself awake.

Haibara was supposed to be focusing on some first-grade-level writing exercise, but it was nowhere near stimulating enough to prevent her thoughts from dwelling on the nightmare and what she'd witnessed the night before. No matter how much it looked and sounded like him, it wasn't Gin who murdered the dazzleflies. In fact, she had quickly come to the conclusion that it was really the alien Pandora that the dazzleflies had mentioned just before she – they had used the 'she' pronoun – had shown up, but she had looked just like Gin. Just like him. If the dazzleflies hadn't acted like they were expecting him and Haibara hadn't seen 'his' eyes turn red for that brief second, she never would have known it wasn't the real Gin, and that… that terrified her. What if something had happened to him and he was being impersonated just like Akemi? The thought had crossed her mind last night and she'd been seconds away from calling him to make sure when the memory of his frightening visage had stilled her hands. That might not have been the real Gin, but she had seen him make that expression before, twice within the past year alone. It was the face he'd worn when he'd faced her on the snow-covered rooftop of the Haido City Hotel and again during his interrogation of the Gorda several months ago.

She'd put her phone aside then, but now not even those memories were enough to dissuade her from wanting to drop everything she was doing and calling him to make sure he was still alive. School was just barely half-over though and she wasn't about to pull an Edogawa excuse of going to the bathroom just to call her significant other. Haibara released a quiet huff of frustration and desperately tried to refocus on the work before her. This was turning out to be a painfully-long school day.

()()()()()

Miraculously, Haibara managed to get through the school day without alerting Kudo to any suspicious behavior on her part and was safely back at home in the basement staring determinedly at her phone. She was being ridiculous hesitating like this. It wasn't Gin who'd murdered the dazzleflies, but this Pandora character. Even so, if Kudo's soul was still pure and whole, then Gin's was the opposite. His soul was torn and corrupted, and he'd chosen to place his faith in loyalty instead of justice. He had a dark side that enjoyed causing pain and fear in others, and she was sitting with her phone in her hands acting like she didn't already know this… Like she hadn't sensed that darkness in him from the very first moment they met at the airport and she had gazed into those foreboding eyes of ice… Like she hadn't gotten to know him anyway and fallen in love while doing so… With that thought in mind, she screwed up her courage and dialed Gin's number before she got cold feet again.

"Yes, it's me. What's up?" Gin answered after a few rings.

Haibara opened her mouth to answer then paused, closed it, and then said apologetically in a childish pitch, "Um, I'm sorry, but are you Rika's dad?"

"… What…?"

"Well, I was trying to call my friend Rika from class because she invited me over to come play, and I thought that-"

"-Sherry, what the hell are you playing at right now?!" Gin yelled at her suddenly.

Warm relief swept through her. "Good, it is you. I had to be sure and now as a favor, I need you to answer something for me. What was the very last thing we discussed?" Haibara asked.

"The fuck are you-?"

"Just answer the damn question, Gin!" she screamed.

There was a moment of silence before he muttered mutinously, "You confirmed that Kudo was present at Tohto Tower on the night of Tanabata when Irish betrayed the Organization and the NOC list was secured."

The remaining tension seeped out of her shoulders and she exhaled heavily. "Thank you, Gin. That was all I needed to know. Bye."

"Wait, Sherry don't-!"

Haibara hung up on him and then immediately powered off her cellphone before he could call her back. Her Gin was alive, that was all that mattered right now. There were other things she needed to tell him soon, but not yet, not until she had a better understanding of what happened the previous night with the Rainbow Dazzleflies. Questioning the living Naeto had only confirmed the strangeness of the family unit's behavior, but offered no insight into what had caused it. She seemed to know she was not herself, that an alien called Pandora had approached them about… something… and that they'd stolen money from convenience stores as bait to catch a woman named Sherry, but that was about it. Her memory of the past two or so weeks was hazy, but she felt, in her own words, 'like her body was detached from her mind and acting freely of its own accord'.

To Haibara, it sounded similar to the brief feeling of disassociation she'd experienced when she was stung by the dazzleflies' hypno-venom right before she was captured, but she didn't have much to go on. Now that the question of Gin's safety had been answered, she hoped that performing necropsies on the dazzlefly bodies would offer some answers to the cause of their abnormal behavior.

()()()()()

"Wait, Sherry don't hang up!" Gin shouted into the phone, but the call had already disconnected. He stared at it dumbstruck and then glared at it. "Sherry, whatever your game is here, I don't like it," he muttered. He stuffed the cigarette he'd been smoking before the call in the ashtray and redialed her number. Her phone didn't even ring and went straight to voicemail, causing him to growl, "Oh no. You're not getting away with it that easily."

"Aniki, what's going on?" Vodka asked from the passenger seat next to him.

"That's what I'd like to know," Gin snarled. "Sherry just called me but pretended like she was a normal kid who might have gotten the wrong number until she was convinced I was really me. Then she asked me what the last thing we talked about was, so I told her, and she hung up and turned off her phone! Does that sound normal to you?"

"No."

"Exactly, which is why I'm calling the one guy near her who knows her true nature."

"Wait, you're actually calling the Arquillian?!" Vodka exclaimed.

"I am as soon as I can find his number," Gin said and tossed his phone at Vodka. "He's in my Contacts list somewhere. I can't look for it while I'm driving, and I can't remember his name either."

After a few seconds of searching, Vodka said, "Found him. 'Hiroshi Agasa (Sherry's scientist)'."

Gin nodded. "Good, call him and give me back the phone."

Vodka did so, and Gin took the phone back, placing it against his ear and listening to it ring. The voice of an old man that Gin had never heard before answered, "Hello, Dr. Agasa speaking."

"Dr. Hiroshi Agasa, I am Gin, an executive agent of the Men in Black and an acquaintance of Sherry who is currently a resident of your home. I have a few questions for you about her if you're able to answer right now," Gin said.

"Ah… yes sir, I can answer…" the scientist said uncertainly.

"Very good, but first…" his eyes narrowed. "Did something happen to Sherry recently?"

"Eh! H-How do you know?!"

Gin snorted. "Hmph, Sherry called me just now and was behaving strangely. She first pretended she was actually a child despite instigating the call, then demanded I tell her what we discussed in our last conversation and hung up without explaining herself. So I'll ask again: what happened to Sherry?"

"Ah… well… if she's already called and didn't tell you, I'm not sure I have the right to tell you about it…"

Gin gritted his teeth and his eyes became narrow slits. "Let me make this very plain to you, Professor," he said in a tone as low as it was deadly. "If Sherry has come to any harm while under your care, I will not hesitate to remove her from her assignment to protect you while she's in hiding, the consequences be damned. Now… for the last time… what. happened. to. Sherry?"

"She wasn't hurt, I swear it!" Agasa exclaimed frantically. "But… yesterday after confronting a family unit of Rainbow Dazzleflies that were stealing from convenience stores, they kidnapped her. She managed to escape unscathed, but the entire group was slaughtered, and she doesn't know who did it."

"Are you sure that's it?" he asked sharply.

"I promise that's all I know!" Agasa insisted.

"Very well. Thank you for your cooperation," Gin sighed heavily.

"Hey…" Agasa said as if coming to a sudden realization. "You wouldn't happen to be Ai's…"

"-No," he cut off before the aged scientist could complete that thought and hung up.

"What's the situation, Aniki?" Vodka asked.

"Sherry was kidnapped by dazzleflies yesterday," he said woodenly.

"What?!" Vodka exclaimed, sounding both alarmed and confused.

"The scientist said she wasn't hurt and managed to get away on her own."

"Well, that's a relief, but… dazzleflies…? That's not normal, is it?"

"No, and that's probably what caught Sherry's attention in the first place," he agreed.

"But just now, why didn't Sherry tell you she'd been kidnapped if nothing more than that happened? Surely, she knew such a weird, uninformative call would freak you out," Vodka said.

Gin hummed as he stared out the front window at the long stretch of black highway ahead of him and drummed his fingers idly on the steering wheel, thinking. "She had no choice…" he said at last. "She had to call to make sure I was still myself and not somebody else… But whatever happened when she was captured scared her badly enough that she's keeping it secret from everyone, even the Professor… Vodka, if she doesn't call me back within a week to give me the full story, I'm going to interrogate her in person. All sorts of monsters lurk in the dark, and I'll be damned if I'm caught sleeping just because Sherry was too prideful to keep me abreast of her current situation."

()()()()()

Haibara hadn't called Gin back yet. He was going to be furious with her for not telling him about the kidnapping, and even more so for waiting so long, but she was still putting it off. She'd chosen instead to focus on the necropsy of the dazzlefly and was now analyzing the tissue samples she'd taken. Naeto was currently buzzing quietly around her secret lab hidden behind the back wall of her closet in the basement, and she trying to read the chemical labels. When Haibara had been doing the actual dissection, she'd had to send the poor bug out of the lab up to the main part of the house with the Professor. She couldn't watch one of her unit sisters being cut into and Haibara didn't blame her. She could perform autopsies on human strangers no problem, but she didn't think she could maintain the necessary professional detachment if the body was of someone she knew personally.

She had finished with dissecting the body and, having seen nothing abnormal on the macroscopic level, was now turning to the microscopic. She didn't even know what she was looking for, except that an entire family unit of Rainbow Dazzleflies couldn't suddenly break their genetically-ingrained hive-centric mentality without assistance. And, as she kept reminding herself every time one of her lines of investigation failed to yield results, Pandora had done something to the unit according to Naeto's testimony. She was still just trying to figure out what that was.

It was when she got to the slides she'd made of the liver-like organ (which was proof enough that dazzleflies were never Earth-based insects, since only vertebrates had livers), that she finally found something to make her pause. Healthy liver cells were pinkish and round with full, dark nuclei and very little white space present. Fatty livers had large round globs of white spread throughout and cirrhotic livers, depending on the extent of the liver scarring, would have patches of tightly-packed blue-colored cells breaking up the normal liver cell pattern like a highway through a neighborhood subdivision. The cells she was looking at now resembled those of a cirrhotic liver, but someone experienced in working with the liver could tell if it was fatty or scarred without having to look at the cells under a microscope. The liver of the dazzlefly had looked completely healthy when she'd examined it still in the body.

Haibara adjusted the focus of the microscope to a higher magnification and zoomed in on the cluster of apparent scar tissue. It was blue, but she could immediately tell that was where the similarities ended. The cells were still those of liver cells, but they were compressed and filled with a blue fluid that did not appear to be either cytoplasm or water. She slid away from the microscope and walked over to the small refrigerator where she was storing her tissue samples in the preservation gel until she was ready for them. She pulled out the entire tray and plucked out one of the ones labeled 'liver'. She placed the contents of one phial in the centrifuge and made sure to balance it with another phial filled with water on the opposite side before turning it on. She drummed her fingers idly on the counter as she waited for the centrifuge to finish spinning and glanced at the clock on the wall. It was already 9:15; she'd missed dinner again this week. Oh well.

At last, the machine slowed to a halt and Haibara removed both phials. She poured the water one back into the sink and brought the other phial up to her eye level. All of the solids and liquids had been separated and at the very top was a thin layer of clear light blue liquid. She frowned at it. That definitely wasn't normal, but what was it? She siphoned off the blue liquid with a pipette, careful not to extract any of the clear fluid below it, and transferred it to another phial without a cap. She labeled it and then brought it over to the computer set in the wall. This was an MiB unit from the science division that could do things the average computer couldn't. She pressed a purple capsule-shaped button on the operating system's hard drive and a slot opened up much like a CD tray except that a clamp extended outward instead. Haibara placed the phial between the arms and pressed the purple button again to retract them.

With the liquid now in the computer, she turned her focus back to the monitor and the keyboard. She clicked on an icon with a flask full of green liquid to activate the chemical analysis software and the machine hummed to life as it processed the sample. While she was waiting for the red loading bar to fill up, she opened up the chemical portion of the MiB's network database in preparation. The Men in Black had the most comprehensive database of known natural and manufactured chemicals of Earthly and extraterrestrial origin with newly-discovered chemicals being added to the list all the time. If the MiB had encountered this strange blue liquid in the liver before, then she would find it as soon as the computer finished the analysis.

The computer dinged at her and the analysis window popped up in front, showing her a 100% completion bar. Haibara smiled to herself and closed the window which automatically opened the file folder where it was stored. She renamed the file but kept the analysis ID number and imported the file into the MiB chemical database. Once the file was accepted, she ran a match scan and left the computer to start cleaning up. She'd been staying up too late these past few nights and the lack of sleep was starting to catch up with her. Also, it would probably take all night for the computer to compare her unknown chemical to every other chemical in the database, so now was as good a stopping point as any.

Once her work stations were clean, everything turned off except the computer, and her samples stored once more, Haibara turned to the dazzlefly hovering by the medicine cabinet and said, "Naeto, I'm leaving the lab. You have to come out now."

"Okay, We're coming," she said distractedly – Haibara could still only hear and understand her thanks to the Babelfish – but flew out the secret door ahead of her.

Haibara turned off the last of the lights and pressed a white button hidden in the back right bottom corner of the closet. The closet's back wall slid right into place with not a trace of evidence to indicate there was anything to hide.

()()()()()

The next morning came bright and early, and Haibara felt refreshed from having finally gone to bed at a decent time and gotten a full night's worth of sleep. Remembering her unfinished work from the previous night, Haibara got up – without disturbing the Professor or the dazzlefly that had taken to sleeping at the foot of her bed like a cat – and made her way down to the basement closet. She opened up the lab doors and entered. It was chilly inside and she gave a shudder, but approached the computer mainframe with purpose. The screen had gone into sleep mode, so she jiggled the mouse and the screen immediately lit up. Haibara blinked her eyes a few times to adjust to the sudden brightness before she could stare at the screen properly, and her eyes widened in surprise. The MiB match scan had detected one other chemical in the database with a 72% match to the one she'd scanned, but the chemical it was matched to was also of an unclassified substance. Great, the Organization had encountered a similar substance before, but she was no closer to discovering what it was.

Frowning in frustration, she clicked on the file for the unknown chemical to read over the background information, and the first thing she saw when she opened the document was Scotch's profile picture. The second thing she saw was that the record of the chemical had been submitted to the Organization's database two years ago. Curious, Haibara scanned through what little was available on the existing chemical and her expression slowly grew more alarmed until she reached the end of the document.

Gin's words from several months ago seemed to echo in her head, "The autopsy found some kind of odd drug in Scotch's system, but it was at such low levels that they couldn't identify it…"

Even not knowing what the drug was, it had still been submitted into the MiB's chemical database, and now she had a chemical in her possession extracted from a corpse that had a 72% match similarity.

"… the lack of blood splatter on Scotch's right thumb suggests he may have been the one to pull the trigger and committed suicide. While more plausible than the theory that Rye killed him, it still doesn't make sense… committing suicide with Akai's gun doesn't fit with Scotch's character assessment…"

Scotch's strange suicide…

"There were many suspicious points, such as Akai failing to meet me at the scheduled time and had instead pursued another codenamed member who happened to be a NOC like him."

… and Akai pursuing him despite having a scheduled meeting with Gin after only just earning a codename rank… Could it be…? But this meant…!

Her heart racing, Haibara tore out of the room and grabbed her phone off the desk next to the computer table where it was charging. She quickly dialed Gin's number and waited, silently begging for him to answer as it rang.

He answered and swore, "Damn it, Sherry, do you have any idea how mad I am at you right now?!"

"You can scold me for scaring the living daylights out of you later! Right now, I have something extremely important to tell you and this cannot wait!" she said frantically.

In an instant, the anger was gone and his voice was cool and composed as ice. "Sherry, what happened?"

"Where do I even start?!" she exclaimed, absent-mindedly running a hand through her bangs. "I was kidnapped nearly a week ago by a group of Rainbow Dazzleflies-"

"-I know," he growled. "I had to call the Arquillian you're living with to figure out why you were behaving so strangely."

"You called…!" she gasped in outrage.

"-What did you expect I was going to do after receiving such a weird phone call?! Idly twiddle my thumbs and assume everything was fine!"

Haibara shook her head in frustration. "This isn't what I want to talk about right now!"

"You've already spent nearly a week not talking about this! If you hadn't called me by tomorrow, I was going to come and interrogate you about the matter in person!"

"Gin-!"

"-You owe me, Sherry!"

"Would you just shut up already?! Okay?" she yelled. It was so much easier being angry at Gin and it was the only thing keeping her from collapsing into a trembling bundle of fear and tears. "This is so much bigger than that; the dazzleflies kidnapped me by the order of a being they called Pandora!"

A heavy silence suddenly filled the air between them. "What…?" he breathed.

"Remember? The Gorda we arrested for being in possession of high-powered plasma weapons mentioned a Pandora was on the move and that's why the criminal underground has been so anxious?"

"I remember, I just didn't believe."

"Well, the dazzleflies claimed the convenience store robberies were bait to capture me for Pandora. They used their hypno-venom to keep me placid and when it wore off, I was unrestrained and they were arguing with each other over whether I was Sherry or not. I took advantage of their distraction to find myself a hiding place, and tranquilized the first dazzlefly that came near it to hide under their mirror carapace once they realized I'd gone missing. They regrouped after a while and were panicking about not finding me when you suddenly showed up… I thought it was you…"

"Sherry…?"

"The dazzleflies weren't surprised to see you and when your voice asked where I was, they apologized for losing me… That's the only reason I hadn't yet revealed myself to you," her voice was trembling uncontrollably now and she hated it, but couldn't stop it. "Then you grinned – as you did to me at the Haido City Hotel and to the Gorda when you interrogated her – and I felt that same killing intensity as your eyes flashed red, and you shot and killed every single dazzlefly in the room except the one hiding with me…"

"That wasn't me," Gin insisted. It seemed important to him that she believe him.

Haibara nodded meekly. "I know. It had to be Pandora, but Gin… if it wasn't for the circumstances and the eyes abruptly shifting to red, I never would have known it wasn't you… She resembled you that accurately."

"'She'?" he repeated.

"That's the pronoun the dazzleflies were using for Pandora. After everyone was dead, she said 'The one I used on Irish wasn't strong enough, but this one ended up being too strong, and Sherry's still alive to boot. Their venom better be worth it', before she left. Doesn't that sound like…?"

"… like Pandora was responsible for the odd behaviors that caused both the dazzleflies to forsake their hive and Irish to betray the Organization?"

"Yes…" she agreed.

"What happened after that?"

"I had Dr. Agasa come pick me up and rescue the only survivor of that unit-"

"-Where is she now?" he interrupted.

"I interrogated her on what she knew, but her memory of the events of the past two weeks is fuzzy and she says most of the time, she felt like her brain and body were disassociated from each other, but she's been staying in the lab and the basement ever since."

"Sherry…!" he groaned.

"Don't worry, I'm done with her now, so you can help her get back to her hive after this. Back to my story, the professor also brought along some corpse preservation gel that I had asked for so that I could dissect one of the bodies and see if I could discover the cause of the abnormality. I've been working on the necropsy all week and found nothing on the macroscopic scale. Last night when I was examining one of the liver slides, I saw some odd, compressed blue-colored cells that superficially resembled scar tissue from afar, but there wasn't any visible scarring on the whole organ when I examined it. I took another liver sample and after centrifuging it, discovered an unusual clear light blue liquid on top. I took that liquid and submitted it into the computer for chemical analysis with the MiB's database and this morning, I got a match back."

"The MiB has seen this chemical before?"

Haibara gulped and nodded shakily. She'd calmed down some when Gin had distracted her with Naeto's current fate and then was explaining the steps she'd taken to analyze the strange chemical. Now that she had come to the 'Results' and 'Discussion' sections of her report, she was feeling the fear coming back. "Sorta…" she admitted, "There was only one record it showed a 72% match similarity to… and it was to the unidentified chemical found during Scotch's autopsy."

"Scotch's…?!"

"Yeah… Gin… if this Pandora made a chemical that caused the dazzleflies and Irish to act strange, and this chemical has a 72% match rate to the one found in Scotch two years ago, wouldn't it be logical to assume that Pandora had created that chemical too?"

"It is…" Gin admitted slowly. "And if Scotch was acting strangely due to the chemical's imperfections, then that would have drawn Akai's attention and may have seemed more important to investigate than a meeting with an executive that could be rescheduled for a later date."

"Those were my thoughts too, but that would mean Pandora has gotten close enough to two MiB agents in two years to drug them with this chemical, and no one's been the wiser! Was an autopsy done on Irish?" A sudden brainwave hit her. "Or Calvados?"

"Calvad- Oh… Yes, autopsies were performed as per company policy, but obviously they didn't find anything or the records of such a chemical would be in the computer already."

Haibara groaned and ruffled her hair in frustration. "Can you find out if the autopsy teams saved any liver tissue samples from their bodies and have them centrifuge them? That's the organ I found the chemical in. I don't know if there'll be any in Calvados, but there should be some in Irish. In fact, if there were any other incidents of MiB agents acting strangely for unspecified reasons, whether it resulted in their death or not, please find out as soon as you can and get that data submitted."

"I'll try, Sherry, but we're not going to have anything older than five years stored, remember? During the blizzard, we had a power outage and the back-up generators for that section of the building suffered mechanical failure without our realizing it until it was too late."

"We have to know how deep this goes!" Haibara insisted. "Codenamed MiB agents have been targeted and Pandora can so accurately take on the appearance and mannerisms of the man I love that even I can't tell the difference! She could infiltrate the Men in Black any time she wanted. She could even be a full-time member, and we would never know! She could be literally anyone you meet! She could-!"

She broke off with a gasp. Short fair hair… Rectangular glasses… Sharp intelligence… Ikkaku rock… Intense blood lust…

"… She could be Akai," she said in a horrified whisper.

"What?"

"My sixth sense that alerted me whenever Vermouth was nearby, it's briefly gone off twice recently. I felt it when Akai appeared as Subaru Okiya the first time and I felt it again when he was confronting a criminal who was holding one of the kids hostage at Ikkaku rock."

"I am sure that last part makes a lot more sense in context."

Haibara ignored his quip. "I thought that maybe my sixth sense was becoming more sensitive and generalized or something, but what if Subaru Okiya isn't really Akai and I'm instead picking up on Pandora?" Sudden panic seized her. "What if it's Pandora who's after Dr. Agasa and I, and we're just sitting ducks waiting for her to ambush us from next door? Edward, what do I do?!"

"Shiho, love, calm down, okay?" Gin said firmly. "We don't know that anything like that has happened to Akai and even if he is Pandora, acting suspicious will do you no good. Just keep acting as you have been and try not to let him catch you alone. Be sure to warn Dr. Agasa of this and beef up the house's alien security system without making any changes that Kudo will notice. If 'Okiya' really is this Pandora, then she shouldn't be able to walk into the house undetected."

"Okay… okay… thank you…" she said after taking several deep, calming breaths. "It's just… I'm scared Gin, really scared. This feels just like when Vermouth was hunting me, but at least back then, my sixth sense was consistent. Now I don't even have that to warn me," she murmured fearfully.

She heard Gin exhale heavily on the other end and then he said, "I'll admit its timing is inconvenient, but I have some ideas circling around in my head on how to combat it. You probably have to start getting ready for school soon, so I won't keep you much longer-"

Oh yeah, school was a thing. She'd completely forgotten about it.

"-but there's one more thing we have to do before we end this call. If there's a real chance that Pandora has infiltrated the Organization, then we're going to need to come up with a passphrase to verify that we're still Edward Kuroda and Shiho Miyano. It has to be something that is unique to us and simple enough to remember without being obvious or easy to guess," he said.

"We should use our colors: red and silver. Oh, but what if I call you while Vodka's in the car with you?"

"We'll have to say it in a language he doesn't know to keep it secret."

"Okay, does he know English?" she asked.

"Unfortunately, yes."

"Don't you know German?"

Gin grunted, "Enough to get around even though Riesling makes fun of my accent and pronunciation, but you don't know German, Sherry."

"No, but I could just memorize the passphrases and repeat them back," she suggested.

"That won't work. It'll be more difficult for you to remember without knowing the language and if I say the passphrase incorrectly, you won't catch it."

Haibara huffed in annoyance. "Well, the only other language I know apart from Japanese and English is French, so one of us is going to have to-"

"-I know French."

Haibara did a double-take. "You do?"

"Yes."

"Since when?"

"Since I was in high school and thought learning French would impress girls enough to go out with me since Mama always used to say French was the language of love. Then after I put in all that effort, I was determined not to forget it."

"I don't believe you. Say something in French."

There was a pause in which she imagined Gin rolling his eyes before he said, "Dis quelque chose en français."

Haibara stared blankly ahead, trying to process this new information. Gin had been twenty-three when she first met him and in her eyes, he'd always been a mature, responsible adult. Trying to imagine Gin as a typical fifteen- or sixteen-year-old teenage dork that did stuff just to impress girls was blowing her mind right now.

"You never used it on me," she said at last, somewhat indignantly. "How come I'm only just now finding this out about you?"

Gin chuckled, "By the time you came into my life, Sherry, I didn't need to resort to tricking you with a fancy foreign language. Besides, even if I had, it wouldn't have worked on you anyway."

"Okay, fair point," she acknowledged. "So once we figure out what we're going to say, we can translate it. How are we going to do that?"

"Hmm…" he hummed absent-mindedly. "Your color is red, naturally. You are at your most beautiful in red, and when I think of you with longing, I remember our last meeting when you were standing on the balcony with the red setting sun illuminating you and your lovely hair in warm, brilliant, burning light."

Haibara blushed and ducked her head shyly. "No need to be all romantic about it," she mumbled as she tucked some short strands of hair behind her ear, but she too found herself reminiscing about that same day later in the evening after the sun had set. She remembered how beautiful Gin's pale skin and silver hair had glowed in the light of the moon's cool, ethereal night. "Then… perhaps if I am the burning red sun, then you are the cool silver moon," she offered.

"Beautiful, Sherry," he purred and Haibara felt herself blush harder. After a while he said, "How about this: 'Where does the silver moon lie? High in the red sun's sky', where the one who initiates the conversation asks the question and the other has to give the answering statement."

"It's lovely, Gin. Unique, thematic, and simple, but not obvious or easy to guess. You have a true talent for wordplay," Haibara said.

"I know, it drove Emma nuts every time we played word games as kids. She hated it," he said, and she just knew that he was smirking.

Haibara smiled to herself. Ever since Gin had told her Curaçao was his twin, he had become much more open about mentioning her, even in brief moments like this, and it made her ridiculously happy. He was an intensely private person, but he was allowing her to see inside him anyway.

"Then in French, that passphrase would be 'Où se trouve la lune argente? Haute en ciel du soleil rouge'."

Gin snorted. "Yes, if you just want to use the literal translation instead of the prettier version."

"The prettier…?"

"Ah, like this: 'Où reste la lune argente et claire? La sœur du soleil rouge se trouve dans l'air'."

"You and your love of words…" Haibara muttered with a fond shake of her head and an amused smile. "You can be a romantic when you try. At least we have some sort of identity check in place now. It's better than nothing anyway."

"I'm not letting you die, Sherry," Gin said sharply, and her smile faded slightly. "When Vermouth forced you into a corner, you offered up your life as a sacrifice to protect those around you, but you don't get to make that call this time around. I won't let you. If someone close by is after you, whether it's Pandora or Akai himself, then I'll bring them down without mercy by any means necessary. You're not allowed to die, Sherry. Promise me that."

"I…"

"Promise."

"Okay, okay, I promise," she agreed.

"Good. I'm holding you to it."

She nodded absently. "Then, if I need to help somehow with getting Naeto safely out of the Professor's house, you're allowed to text me this time, but I guess I do have to get ready for school now."

"I know. Take care, Sherry."

"I'll try…" she said and hung up with a heavy sigh. "It's useless," she muttered despondently. "Making me promise something I can't keep. I have a target painted on my back by an enemy that can look like anyone. You are capable of some amazing things, Gin, but not even you can fight a war against an enemy you can't find."

()()()()()

Gin pulled the phone away from his ear after the call ended and stared blankly at the screen. 'Sherry…' he thought worriedly and his brow furrowed.

He'd felt her despair the very moment her composure had broken, and not even distracting her with talk of passphrases had been able to drive it away completely. It was that same melancholy mood that had possessed Sherry when she had begged him to marry her before it was too late. She was right; this situation was just like the one with Vermouth, and Sherry had only survived the final confrontation thanks to the selfless courage of Ran Mouri. He still owed her for saving Sherry's life.

Gin was also still reeling from everything Sherry had just told him regarding her kidnapping, her findings from the dazzlefly necropsy, and all the implications involved with those. He remembered the Gorda he and Sherry had arrested together mentioning a Pandora, and even Rikumichi Kusuda seemed to put stock in its existence. At the time, he'd believed Kusuda was taunting him when he suggested there was a rumor the Pandora had infiltrated the Men in Black, but if it was really a shapeshifter – and a damned good one if it could fool even those closest to the individual whose identity it was borrowing – could there have been some truth to Kusuda's words? As soon as he got back to the science labs, he would order the prioritization of analyzing the liver samples taken from Calvados and Irish. If they were indeed all linked together by this same unidentified chemical as Sherry suspected, then the possibility of the MiB being compromised would suddenly become terrifyingly real. Nobody would be above suspicion. Not Vodka, not Curaçao, not even the Boss himself.

Irritatingly, he recalled Kusuda's last snide words to him before the Cephosanguine patriarch began to investigate Haido Central Hospital. "… can your Organization look at two completely normal-looking, normal-response, healthy human cells and discern which one belongs to an alien?"

The memory alone made Gin's lip curl and he ended up taking the next left turn sharper than he intended. The tires squeaked briefly in protest and he caught a whiff of burned rubber, but he didn't care. Half his mind was focused on getting to the Organization's science labs and the other half was focused on dialing the number of a person he hated almost as much as Vermouth.

"Hello, Bourbon speaking?"

Gin grimaced. "Bourbon, it's Gin."

"Wow, so my Caller ID wasn't malfunctioning. It really is you calling me. To what do I owe this honor?" Bourbon said in his steady, low-key surprised voice.

For someone who got along famously with Vermouth and was just as irritating, he was a rather unflappable character, taking everything in stride with ease. The only time Gin was aware of him losing his cool and becoming emotionally-riled was when Scotch committed suicide.

"I have a new assignment for you: priority Alpha-1. As of this moment, all other current assignments are put on hold indefinitely if they interfere with the implementation of your Alpha-1 objective, understood?" Gin said.

"Priority Alpha-1, huh? That's pretty serious, but why am I receiving this new assignment from you instead of my reporting supervisor? Or from Rum or the Boss?" Bourbon asked in that carefully casual way of his.

Damn him, this was another reason Gin hated talking to the other half-Japanese man. His mind was too sharp for his own good. "Watch your tongue, Bourbon," he said darkly. "I may not be the Number 2 of the Japanese branch of the Men in Black, but I still hold an executive rank and am perfectly qualified to give you new assignments directly without first passing them on to your supervisor."

"Sorry, sorry, I just wanted to make sure this assignment wasn't going to be stepping on anyone's toes, that's all," Bourbon said in a falsely-apologetic tone. "So? What's my new assignment?"

Forest green eyes narrowed into thin slits and Gin gripped his phone tighter. "I'm ordering you to relocate to Beika City in Tokyo. You will investigate every square centimeter of Beika and the surrounding areas for any and all hints of an alien known as Pandora. I don't care how you decide to do it, what you do, how much it will cost, or how long it will take. The Organization will reimburse you accordingly for your expenses, but you will report back to me everything you find out about this being, no matter how seemingly small or insignificant. That is your new assignment; do you have any questions?"

"Yes, just one for the moment. I presume you've chosen me for this assignment because of my specialization in intelligence gathering, but why are you narrowing my search range to such a limited area and why is this Pandora so important that you're giving this assignment an Alpha-1 priority?" Bourbon asked.

An image of Sherry came to him then. One of her tossing a barbed comment at him from over her shoulder with playful eyes and a coy smile on her lips while her short reddish hair spun out like a halo around her neck. The next image was of Sherry lying prone and lifeless sprawled on the ground in a growing pool of her own blood.

"I have reason to believe that there is something in Beika City that the Pandora is after," Gin answered at last. "As for why this assignment is being given such a high priority…" The fact that Bourbon didn't already know about Pandora was proof that his intelligence gathering skills were not infallible. "… you'll understand once you start investigating."

---

The psychic paper from Doctor Who has appeared in this story and now the Babelfish from Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy had made an appearance. I wonder what other random sci-fi alien movies I'll end up borrowing from for this story.

Figuring out the timing for when this event should take place within the canon timeline was a special challenge, especially since the timing of events that take place in the anime versus the manga aren't always the same. For example, in the manga, Kaito Kid vs the Strongest Vault takes place after the Ikkaku Rock murder case, but in the anime, it's the reverse. In this instance, I decided to go with the manga timeline because it was both easier to refer back to and it fit into my story better. In the manga timeline, I was intrigued by the fact that the very next case that occurs after the showdown with the Iron Tanuki is the first time Bourbon as Scar Akai makes his appearance, so I decided to make use of that timing for my own plot-related purposes.